The Importance Of Balancing Playing With Practice

Worship| Music| Church Piano Playing| Practical Matters| Congregational Worship

March 19, 2026•2 min read

"Practice is certainly important. However, we mustn’t let that crowd out the joy of simply sitting down and playing..."

Why is it important to balance playing with practice?

It's necessary to fit in at least some practice, especially when we need to make improvements that have an impact on how effectively we play the piano in church. However, what I also want to highlight is the importance of simply playing the piano for your own enjoyment and for others who may be listening when you play.

Practice is certainly important. However, we mustn’t let that crowd out the joy of simply sitting down and playing, whether that’s playing worship songs, our own compositions, or any other music we enjoy to play.

One of the things I love about having a real piano compared to an electric piano in our home, is that you don't have to switch it on! Surprisingly, as it may sound, that little barrier of turning on an electric piano prevents an awful lot of spontaneous musical moments that with a real piano, just happen as you’re perhaps walking past or maybe just sitting down for 5 minutes before going out.

So as much as you can, make your piano easily accessible, easy to get to, and easy to play. That way, you will be encouraged, hopefully, to play it more often.

Just playing the piano helps you improve, especially if you try to improvise or come up with your own compositions. That can be so much fun!

One other way, which is a lot of fun, and can be as effective as practice sometimes, is to put on some music and play along to it. It doesn’t matter if you make mistakes, but it stretches us in a good way when we try to match certain phrases. Or, even just playing some notes in time with the music can really help if we need to improve our timing.

So give it a go; you might be surprised how much you enjoy it!

I hope this idea of playing as well as practicing was encouraging to you, and hopefully you might find these tips helpful as you implement them!

[Return to The Church Piano Player Website]

This blog post was written by pastor and pianist Kris Baines, from The Church Piano Player. Kris lives in the UK with his family, having recently moved back from New Zealand where he worked as a pastor for the past 26 years (also leading worship/worship teams). Kris has also spent over 35 years writing, recording, and performing music and is now bringing all that combined experience together to help equip church piano/keyboard players.

Check out the church piano player website for more information on online courses by Kris Baines.